to wonder what the fuck to do now? (Immediate financial problem)

[Margaritte]

We are on a very tight budget for the next couple of months. We know this, and have got advice from StepChange & I posted a thread on here for recipe /shopping advice.

However, today our card declined trying to pay for £22 or so worth of shopping. We were not expecting that, and now I am very worried and starting to panic

We have some food in for dinners. No packed lunch food though, for ds1 & 2 and dh. We have no milk (well, enough for a bottle tonight for dd) and are down to 3 nappies.

Payday isn't until end of next week, so have to do something until then.

I'm hoping that all PM's I have replied to have recieved them ok.

I realise I may have caused some problems, by not having access to my account. I guess by default of this, that this thread may have come to an end I hope that isnt the case, as it has been so helpful to me, and still is.

I will be reading through again today, and updating too anyway.
Again, I'm very sorry if any problems have been caused.

Oh no... this thread can't come to an end. I refer the summary recipe and financial posts to others in similar circumstances!

I have re-posted advice from the great MNetters on this thread to others in a similar situation. I wouldn't have know about these links had I not volunteered to be your cyber PA Margaritte. (LoL)

I have answered all my PMs also.

usualmum and Land0r - please check your PM box.

Margaritte,

Now that you have accepted the allotment, I think we need advice and links to what to plant for winter vegs.

I have only had a very long 30ft garden, but my late-DH and his Dad were pretty clever growing fruit and vegetables. Sadly, the peas never made it to our dining table when DSD was sent to collect! She burst the pods and ate 90% of what she collected.

And you HAVE to have sprouts for Christmas!

I live in Los Angeles, so might be a bit different here but....the supermarkets always put meat/fish on sale 50% that has a sell by date of that day (happens when they stock too much of something and don't sell it in time). They put it out at a certain time each day, and it's a great place to find fabulous bargains on yummy things. I often will plan my meal around whatever meat/fish is on sale that day. I think they do the same in the UK.... Also a lot of bakeries will sell off the day old goods right before closing time of the day they are baked. I will buy a bunch of stuff and then freeze it. Bread freezes really well (not so much in the fridge). I don't know if anyone else has mentioned...cooking beans from dried, not out of a can. And it turns out (I have done lots of research on this), that you don't have to soak them in advance as it only saves a short amount of time.
When you have a chance to catch your breath and figure out what to do to bring in extra income...keep your mind open. Look through the help-wanted ads on gumtree and explore them all. You sound like you are good with kids and since you are at home with your dd, how about offering a service to pick up children from nursery/school and take them to the child minders/home. I found working full time when my dc's were young very difficult because once my dc's were in nursery/school the coverage wasn't enough for me to sustain a full time job and I had no way to get them to child care and didn't have the budget/desire to have a nanny (who could do the picking up for me).
Sorry if any of this is redundant.

Information sent to me by a supporter which confirms what I was also going to suggest.

Fill in the Free School Meal form (you have to say which benefit you receive but it's all confidential).

The school then receives Premium Pupil funding in respect of your child.

That money should then be used to pay for that pupil to have after school activities in and outside of the school, all school trips (resisential included) and a host of other stuff. And it then continues for 5 years!!! Regardless of change of circumstances!!

Its discretionary as to what the HT will use it for but in my school this is what happens.

In my area, the children's centre can give out nappy vouchers and coop vouchers if you're in dire need. Worth trying :)

I'm still reading throught the posts - it's longer than I remember.

We are still learning to cook on our budget - I have tried most of the recipes posted on here now, and feel much more confident with it all. My worry is that I'm not able to make it varied enough on what we have - I want everyone to have enough fruit & veg, and I am struggling alot.

I am still decluttering, and selling to try to get us through. And I do have a few bad moments, where I just want to cry - I struggle with things sometimes and it has been hard to launch into having to make everything from scratch whilst recovering from PND.

However, I am so pleased that I can cook now. I'm trying to get myself into a daily routine too, as I feel that may help (feel myself lapsing slightly emotionally). I've come a long way - because of the advice on here, and I really think I would be in such an awful place if I hadn't posted at all.

I haven't read any new posts on here yet, as still catching up, though will reply to them all when I have.

Margaritte,
I haven't read the whole thread, it would take me forever but I do have a few ways we tend to scrape by!
Firstly- we have these reward cards everywhere we shop, tesco, aainsburys, boots, Costa, nandos- we save these points until we are skint, then we use them on shopping, maybe the luxuries of coffee or dinner out with the nandos or Costa points. They make such a difference!
2- always keep £3 on your bank card, so if you are a week from payday and need to get to work, you can petrol trick the car- it's not something we do anymore- but it used to be an every other week occurrence. Go to a self service petrol pump, put your card in. Fill up, the money will come out of your unplanned overdraft. Not great but it gets you to work.

3- always keep a few meals in the freezer. Nothing fancy. But we've always got frozen rice and chicken in the freezer. It's about £5.50 of food- it would feed us a few times if we needed. Also, bags of pasta! £1 each and in dire straits you'd be fed!

4- sign up for market research panels, my husband and I generally do two each a month (£40-£70 per time, which makes a huge difference to us!) we just send an email when they get sent through to us.

Good luck Hun. It can be very hard sometimes.

Also, try farm foods. They do so much frozen chicken- which is a lifesaver if cooking on a budget, their frozen veg bags are great too.

unreasonablebetty which market research emails do you do? I signed up to a few and seem to fill in loads but never get paid.

magritte I'm a long time reader but recent name changer after the hacking thing and I have oodles of seeds I don't grow if you'd like me to send them to you to grow food. Also worth signing up for kids seed clubs as you'll get carrots, squash, courgettes and tomatoes for free usually.

OP if you now have an allotment try posting in the Gradening topic, there must be MNers who can help. Also, in Credit Crunch there a thread for frugaleers that I know has some allotment keepers.

adorabell Ty for the tip. We face a tight budget from March (my contract ends) until dd2 gets her 15h funding from Sept so I'm hoping careful planning on food will tide us over.

Also at this time of year many garden centre sell seeds for 25-75p, given some cost £3-4 full price then that's a vast saving.

Have a close friend or family member who would just buy you the essential items without you having to pay them back? I would absolutely do this for someone I knew was having a hard time.

Margaritte, i've followed the thread from the earliest days and I think we may be very local to each other from things you have said in earlier days. I've just read about the issues with the logo'd school uniform. Wish I'd checked earlier.
So on the basis that we ARE local to each other, does your DC1 need the royal blue logo for the school in the next town, or the red logo for the school in this town? I have stuff with the royal blue logo looking for a home.
Of course, if I've misread the cues and you aren't in this town where Asda has a boat on a stick next to it, then I won't be of any use!

Okay, I am being your cyber PA again Margaritte and following through some suggestions:

Unreasonablebetty - I have sent a PM asking if you can come back to this thread and comment further on market research sites. That will help both Margaritte and Lictionary.

Adorabell - Thank you for suggesting other areas of MN that can help

Gardening link is here: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/gardening

Credit Crunch is here: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/credit_crunch

(I'll read through credit crunch threads to see if there is anything helpful for Margaritte's situation - she is limited to fitting in internet time around the 3 DCs. DC3 is only 2 years old and naps for 1.5 hrs in the afternoon which Margaritte is using to do the 'cooking from scratch')

Totalconfucious - I'll ask Margaritte to PM you (she is very protective of not outing the children's schools - as you clearly understand from your coded message). DC1 (boy) is 13 years old, so if he is at the blue-with-logo school that you think it might be, I am sure she will be grateful for any help. Even I don't know the children's schools as it is not necessary for me to know.

DC2 (boy - 6 yrs) is sorted for his school uniform thanks to a kind MNetter.

DC3 (girl - 2 yrs) has been sent some lovely, good quality hand-me-downs from yet another MNetter.

Thanks to everyone else for your suggestions. I'll include them in my next consolidation posts.

SW

I'm still trying to catch up with my thread again - it's so long. Lovely to read though, and a good refresh of all advice.

SofiaAmes I will look through Gumtree today - that's such a clever idea

sadwidow I will look into the free school lunches again just to double check. I'm not sure DS1 will get the though, as DH is working.

Pidapie I will check out the voucher situation at my SureStart

Unreasonablebetty I'm working on the freezer meals - I struggle sometimes, and to have it cooked and frozen, ready to throw in the oven, would be fab. We do have a FarmFood near by us, and get pur frozen veg there. Haven't tried the meat though.

Lictionary I will PM you RE the seeds. They would be great, thank you

Adorabell I will get over to those threads today! Sounds great, and I've already dipped into the credit crunch section.

passthenutellaplease No, I don't have anyone that could - on either my DH or my family side. Friends - no. I'm pretty isolated where I am, (social wise ) and only have 2 friends nearby to me. We only moved here a couple of years ago, and I havent managed to establish friendships yet - although am trying my best.

Totalconfucious Your offer is lovely, thank you - The schools sound familiar - we are in a town that has red logo uniform school (although not the only school here) and DS1 goes to a school in the next town with a royal blue logo. I'm not sure about Asda having a boat with a stick though Should I just PM you?

Hi Margaritte well done for getting through the last few months. We have been on a very tight budget and I wanted to share some of the small things that have helped. I haven't rtft so apologies if I include lots of duplicates.

A couple more recipies. Pancakes are really cheap, we use up whatever is in the fridge for savoury ones, leeks with cream cheese, ham spring onion and cheese/cream cheese or even cheese triangles, mushrooms and garlic, frozen spinach, diced tomatoes, in what ever combo you like. Followed by raisins and butter and sugar, Nutella, honey. My DS loves helping with the mixing. It is quick and can be scraped together from store cupboard basics.

We use the frankfurter sausages for spaghetti spiders. Chop sausages into inch chunks break spaghetti in half and push 4 pieces through each chunk. Boil up with lots more spaghetti with a tomato sauce made with tinned tomatoes, garlic, dried herbs, fresh herbs, whatever veg needs using (grated carrot, grated courgette, mushrooms, peppers, tomatoes etc). I like to add salt, pepper, paprika, a pinch of sugar and a dash of vinegar to make it super tasty. The sauce is great to freeze. Also good if you have ham or bacon to use up just chuck it in.

I buy packs of cooking bacon from Sainsburys at £1.15 for 670g. I use it to batch cook tomato pasta sauces and carbonara style pasta sauces and freeze. If DH is lucky then we have 'leftover' pieces as bacon sandwiches on a Saturday. Can also use with left over chicken to make chicken leek and bacon pie. Helps make the Mumsnet chicken go further.

Chickpea rice, using tinned chickpeas, onion, garlic, tomato purée (don't want it too wet so not tinned toms), garam masala/curry powder/cumin seeds/chilli powder to your taste. I sometimes buy a small knob of garlic, break of a good looking piece and it will only cost a few pence, freeze and grate from frozen as required, this way using the skin and avoiding wastage. If I see coriander marked down to super cheap 10-20p a bag I grab a couple and freeze and just crumble in stalks and all as required. It only works if you are cooking it.

At the moment apples are in season and round us people put windfalls out for people to take. I am stock piling Apple crumbles in the freezer. I also make apple compote/purée with sugar, cinnamon and a knob of butter at the end. It is lovely stirred through cheap yoghurt.

If you are time rich and money poor there is foraging to be done for blackberries now. Last year we also foraged cob nuts (hazelnut family) which is time consuming but fun if you like that kind of thing.

As well as selling groups I have found local FB groups that are for giving away free stuff. For example this is where DS bed came from.

I have only joined one survey site, Swagbucks, but have earned over £200 in Amazon vouchers in the last year. I got a new email specifically and use a slightly modified version of my personal info (ie change DOB by one day) so that if my info did get hacked it wouldn't be useful. I am trying to build up a stash for Christmas.

Good luck and I hope that there are easier days ahead for you.

Sorry, I never finished the chickpea rice. Boil rice, layer rice spoon over chickpeas, top with more rice. Brush top with oil and pop in oven till top a little crispy. I love it with yoghurt, DH prefers a dollop of mango chutney.

Thanks Goulashsoup - brilliant recipes that I will include in the consolidation post. (Margaritte is building her own little recipe notebook.)

Margaritte - please can you look at this site to see if DS1 qualifies for FSM:

www.gov.uk/apply-free-school-meals

Once they are awarded, FSM continues for 5 years. So if DS1 got them at primary school, he will still qualify in secondary school (including academies, voluntary aided schools etc)

I am not good on the detail of applying for FSM other than (many years ago) I advised all headteachers in my LA to get every parent of a qualifying child to fill in the form if even if the child did NOT take FSM. The Pupil Premium is based on the number of children who qualify for FSM whether eaten or not.

GoulashSoup Thank you for all the recipe suggestions, they look great I will be trying some of them over the next few weeks. Could I have the recipe for the chicken pie please?

sadwidow I checked - DS1 not entitled, because we get WTC. We did have a point where DS1 received them in year 6 - so how does that work now?

Whilst we are on the subject lunches, any more cheap ideas would be great. DS1 & Dh take a packed lunch with them, and I'm running out of ideas on how to make them tasty, v.cheap & filling. Its sandwiches at the moment, and I'm sure that's not good enough long term, though dont know what to do about it. I'm happy to bake if need be.

My kids love canned tuna fish...but not done the traditional way with mayo. I do it Italian style. I buy tuna in water (the tuna in oil is very expensive here) and then I empty the water from the tuna and add olive oil and fresh rosemary and then put it in the microwave for just a tad to warm it up a little as it brings out the flavor of the olive oil and rosemary. I serve this as a protein for dinner (with beans, veg and a salad) and put it in sandwiches for lunch.

Also, not sure if anyone else has suggested this, but I cook huge batches of chicken legs and drumsticks (seasoned with rosemary, garlic (lots of it) and salt and pepper and a drop of olive oil so they don't stick to the pan). Bake in the oven for an hour or so (depends on the size of the pieces) at 350F. I then freeze lots of it, and put individual pieces in the kids' lunches for the next few days too.

I'm sorry I don't know how helpful this is but I would like to help and we cook blooming everything from scratch. I sell local produce online in France, so this is my specialty area as such, but not much use to you where you are I'm afraid. Our home store cupboards are full of food that is out of date but perfectly good, and can't be sold, but I would happily let someone in dire straights help themselves. So I'm sure there are people like me in your area too. Don't be ashamed to ask, because putting food in the bin is a horrible thing to have to do, and no normal person would choose to do it. I just can't bring myself to do it.

Just a thought, and maybe only possible in the country but do you have access to anyone with vegtable and fruit gluts. We have apple trees in our garden and are currently make purée, chutney, crumble bases etc. Desperately trying to reduce waste, and we'd be very happy to hand it some of it over to someone in your situation.

Tomatoes that are over ripe we chuck in bags into the freezer etc (remove any rotten bits first) and you can use them direct from the freezer like tinned tomatoes.

You could ask any wholesalers or green grocers if they would let you have their unsellable fruit and veg for free (or really minimum price) which would allow you to cook up for the freezer. The worst that could happen is they say no.

My kids will eat mash with an amazing quantity of other veg in it.

Student mince - 75% veg, preferably grated, 25% mince. We no longer like it any more meat heavy than that.

Soups are a standard way of using up manky veg too, chuck in a few pulses, or a handful of pasta, for a bit more sticking power in the stomach. Different soups with different textures - depending how big or small you cut up your veg, and how much you use the mixer or not at the end. We do a kind of veg stew/soup, which is utterly delicious.

Masala spices and paprika used in small amounts add a lot of flavour, that even smalls quite like.

Quite a cheap one is stuffed marrow - put rice and a stock cube in the bottom of dish, put your partially hollowed out marrows in with whatever meat, veg, pluses mix you fancy, with loads of flavourings if possible, put a lot of boiling water in the bottom of the dish over the rice (and more than you might imagine - and you can add more as necessary) and cook it in the oven until the rice is done.

Hope this helps a bit.

i have just read this whole thread from start to finish, and wanted to make one post. Margaritte- if your ds1 goes to secondary school, and you live more than 3 miles away from the school in a straight line, even with your dh working (on a low income) you may be eligible for a free bus pass for him. you might not be, but its worth checking out your lea website to find out, they may also have other ways to help.

I had better start doing another consolidation post for recipe suggestions as the first idea that came to mind was the mini-omelette muffins which I found on another MN thread and posted the link.

I tried them for Ringo's birthday BBQ in July and everyone was really enthusiastic. I actually used cake baking papers with a bit of spray oil on for the BBQ so that people could pick up, peel and eat.

www.food.com/recipe/mini-made-to-order-omelet-cups-114321

SofiaAmes has some great ideas for lunch there - and it fits with the suggestion from Unreasonablebetty to get meat from FARMFOODS. They do 3kg bags of chicken drumsticks, thighs (and breasts) for next to nothing! (Cheaper than Aldi/Lidl because they sell in 3kg bags).

They also sell the tuna in spring water. The difference in price for 3 or 4 tins of tuna in spring water (rather than oil) isn't huge, but it gives you an option to save a few more pennies.

You can also make quiche (I think there a few suggestions on this thread already). Now, making shortcrust pastry in your food processor is easy. You use the plastic blade rather than the stainless steel cutting one.

• 8oz of plain flour,
• 4oz of margarine,
• pinch of salt,
• mix on speed 5/6 to get to bread-crumb stage,
• then add water through to top funnel to make a pastry dough.
• Roll out as usual

(You can make as much or as little shortcrust pastry as you want using half fat to flour)

If you are making a big batch of egg for omelettes or quiche, take the blade out and change to your whisk. It turns as it gyrates.

You also make pancake/yorkshire pudding (batter) using the whisk attachment.

www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/1710/classic-pancakes

If you make small yorkshire puddings in a muffin tin, you can fill them for lunch boxes or even evening meal depending on what you put in.

• stewing steak in bottom, touch of horseradish top with mashed potato and grill
• bacon bits, beans and topped with mashed potato and grill
• sausages (cut small) and baked in the batter is mini-toad-in-the-hole

If you don't want to make your own mini-yorkshire puddings, FARMFOODS sell a pack of 12 very cheaply.

I see there are suggestions for salads..... so for your food processor:

• Remove the blades and put the plastic spindle in.
• Add the blade on top that will slice to your desired width (Each blade has 2 settings whether it is up or down)
• Put lid on and feed through the funnel (using the funnel top as the 'pusher')

DO NOT PUSH DOWN WITH FINGERS OR ANY ITEM OF CUTLERY

• Lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber, mushrooms, peppers cut into quarters & de-seeded.

If you want to add carrot then change your slicing blade for a grating blade.

If you want to make home-made cole-slaw:

Use your bigger grating blade on the spindle and push through:

green cabbage, onion, carrots. Add pepper, celery seeds and mix with mayonnaise.